A (hopefully) comprehensive look at the uniforms, logos and design of the Green Bay Packers, 1919 to today

Monday, May 7, 2012

Bart and the Proto-G

What the heck is going on here?

Reader Jeff Flynn, Jr. sent this photo into Uni Watch this morning. That is, of course, the legendary Bart Starr wearing a leather helmet adorned with a very different "G" emblem than the one we're used to.

White with a narrow green outline, no background oval, the logo bears (if you will) a distinct resemblance to Chicago's "wishbone C" logo.

Was this a prototype, worked up by Dad Braisher before he created the now-iconic helmet logo? I'll see what I can find. Stay tuned.

5 comments:

Great stuff here! I love these little pieces of history. How has no one noticed this picture before? Amazing. I can't wait to find out the story behind this.

Also, my winter job involves working retail at a local sports store. My boss said weeks ago that he had a ton of Acme Packer merchandise coming in, but it was cancelled when he found out the Packers were not wearing the throwbacks. He said there were more than a dozen designs. Not sure if they were all New Era, Nike, '57 brand or all of the above. It will be very interesting to see if Packers Pro Shop will be selling "new" Acme Packer gear this year.

I believe the photo in question is from the 1964 MacGregor catalog. Starr was a 'consultant' for the company (as you can see he is wearing a Mac helmet too in the advert) and was probably just used as prop for the photo as Mac offered various actual team decals or hybrid styles of those decals like this one which seems like a (somewhat blasphemous) Bears and Packers mixture.

I have the answer to the Bart Starr photo - that was a shoot for a MacGregor equipment ad. There were also shots with Johnny Unitas and Mike Ditka but I've only ever seen the Unitas shots actually used as an ad.

Note that none of these players EVER wore a MacGregor helmet on the field - Starr and Unitas wore Riddells and Ditka, being a Chicago Bear, wore a Wilson helmet (Halas had a deal with Wilson and was their major distributor through his sporting goods business). However, that didn't stop all 3 from taking the endorsement money from MacGregor.

I would assume that MacGregor just threw together that logo for the photo shoot - Starr probably told them there was going to be a "G" logo for the Packers that year and MacGregor faked it. Also at that point the Bears were not yet using their wishbone "C" - the Ditka shot has a plain helmet.

These were promo photos for MacGregor Sporting Goods company- note no facemask and earholes and non Packers logo G. They were not authorized or licensed or worn on field by any Packers player. These pieces of equipment were sold to kids.

Chance Michaels is a native New Yorker who spent many of his formative years in Milwaukee and developed a lifelong interest in the region's sporting history. In addition to his work with the Green Bay Packers Uniform Database, he edits BorchertField.com, an ongoing research project devoted to Milwaukee's pre-1953 baseball clubs and their ballpark.

When not immersing himself in old game programs, wire service photos and newspaper archives, he produces theatre Off-Broadway, and was formerly a contributor to The Onion. He lives in New York City with his family.

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